He grimaces, almost as if hearing my name is as hard for him to hear as it is for me to say. Opening his eyes to fix me with a glare, he hangs up and slips his phone into his trouser pocket.
My mind scrambles for excuses. A way out. Something I could say to make all this fucked up crap go away. Did I think he would never work it out?
He takes something else from his pocket and places it on the island. Hopelessness washes through me as I see what it is.My mask.He pushes it towards me with one finger. “One of the cleaners found it.”
The room is quiet except for his breathing. My breathing. A unified existence that’s inescapable, binding us together in this one terrible moment.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and he gives the slightest nod, but I don’t miss the way his fist clenches at his side, the way his shoulders tighten beneath his shirt, or the fury that lingers in his gaze.
He inhales slowly through flared nostrils. “When did you realise?”
“Immediately.” I have to force the word up my throat and out my mouth. It wants to cling to my tongue and never leave. “I mean, the moment I saw you here, in your home. I didn’t know who you were at the club.” I bite down on my lower lip to stop the tremble that wants to start. “But I would never have forgotten you.”
He runs the knuckle of his forefinger over his lips. I have no idea what he’s thinking, but he closes his eyes again.
“It’s okay. I’m leaving soon,” I say, voice breaking. “We don’t have to talk about this.”
His eyes flash open. “We are fucking talking about this.” In a blur, he strides around the island until he’s standing right beside me.
My heart thrums uncontrollably, fear whipping through my veins. The only other man I’ve ever made this angry is my father, and he always lashed out, yelling at me until his voice was hoarse. It takes every ounce of self-control not to cower as though I expect Rafe to do the same.
I snap my laptop shut and push it aside. The air is charged with electricity. I can hardly draw breath for the pressure it’s exerting on my lungs.
“I hate that you did this,” he says, voice low, but there’s no anger in his tone anymore. He sounds disappointed more than anything, and it’s harder to bear than his anger. “I don’t knowwho you are. I thought I knew. I thought we…” He looks at the ceiling, one hand on his hip, and lets out a sigh before returning his gaze to me. “You lied to me.”
I hang my head. “I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough. Once, I could have understood. Maybe. But the other night?” He stops to draw in a deep breath. “Why? Why did you do it?”
I try not to shrivel under his gaze. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to me.”
I swallow, not wanting to lie anymore. “I wanted you. I wantedthisversion of you.” I gesture to him standing there—the man I’ve longed for every single day that I’ve lived here. “But I was never going to get it. You were never going to cross that line. You were going to sit around and…” I wave a hand through the charged air between us. “Pretend it wasn’t there. You were going to keep trying to be decent, and I already knew you weren’t.”
He clasps the back of his neck, rubbing it as he tips his head back. “You’re half my age. My daughter’s friend. Of course I wasn’t going to—”
“But you did.”
“I didn’t fucking know.” The words trip out, but he looks tired, as if this is draining him, and when he continues, his voice is soft. “This can’t be anything. This can’t be—”
“It already is.”
He steps back, his shoulders sloping, his expression almost hopeless. “No. You’re a different person at Delirium. That’s not you and me. What happened there is not…us.”
“You called out my name,” I remind him.
A strained tension spreads between us, worse than before. It claws at my skin and constricts my throat.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak.
“It was just sex,” I whisper, willing to lie in a desperate attempt to pull him back in.
“No.” Pressing his lips together, he gives a grim shake of the head. “I’ve had ‘just sex’, and that wasn’t it.” He inhales so deeply, his chest expands, and his exhalation shudders. “After that first night, I wanted to search for you. But I waited to see if you would contact me, and when you didn’t, I begged Henry to tell me who you were, but he wouldn’t. I had to leave it there.”
“I didn’t mean for it to be anything. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
His jaw quivers, then hardens as he performs a laboured swallow, his eyes filling with an emotion I can’t determine. Sadness, perhaps. It stalls the beat of my heart to see him like that.
